An online journal of the nightly (and daily) nonsense endured by a (former) bouncer at two of New York's most popular nightclubs.

Monday, June 18, 2007

How Things Work

Here’s what you should do if you’re unfairly sucker-punched “for no reason” at the club:

Shut the fuck up and go home.

This is some sage advice from me to you, and you should take it. You may not want to take it, because people mostly don’t want to take advice they don’t like hearing, but you should. You should take this advice because sucker-punching incidents at nightclubs always go the same way, and that way isn’t going to be your way no matter how loudly you shout at bouncers and the police.

You need to shut the fuck up and go home, because nobody cares. That nobody gives a shit is something most of us already know about life. That nobody gives a shit at the club is something most of you refuse to believe when you’ve been sucker-punched and you’re looking for someone who does. This is sad in the way that watching delusional people is sad, which means that it can be very funny at the same time.

What you need to do, if you don’t want to let the thing go, is press charges with the police. To do this, you’ll first need to take the temperature of the bouncing staff. If they’re sympathetic – as we sometimes are when one side of an altercation is obviously a prick - you may have a shot. You’re essentially cooked if they’re not, because the attitude of any police you’ll call will echo that of the bouncing staff. We’re all grown men. If you stand on the sidewalk and scream at us like a little girl – “I need to catch my breat’! I’m hypuh-ventuhlatin’!” – we’ll laugh at you and continue not to care.

This will cause Grown Man A to forever refer to Grown Man B as a “pussy.” This is how guys operate.

Most times, you’ll simply need to shut the fuck up and go home because nobody in the world of “people who can help you” cares what happens in clubs. If you go to the emergency room, they’ll treat you, but they’ll look at you like a piece of shit because you were injured in a nightclub and what happened to you isn’t real. It’s not important to them because it didn’t need to happen. It didn’t need to happen because nightclub life is artificial and regular people with jobs and responsibilities don’t like people who look like they frequent West Chelsea at night.

The police won’t care because they’re tired of dealing with people like you and don’t need the aggravation. Bouncers won’t care for all the reasons I’ve been writing about for the last three years. You’ll be demanding satisfaction from people who don’t want to give it to you because they don’t like you and don’t think you deserve it. They don’t think you deserve it primarily because you’ve chosen to demand your satisfaction by spewing obscenities at them.

So take your punch, learn your lesson, and do something different next weekend.